The Continuing Adventures of Rack and Ruin - Story Thread

[Ninurta]

"Anyone here ever heard of the Final Mainyu?" Tibbs asked across the flickering flames.

The sound of Tibbs' voice breaking the silence woke Ninurta. Instead of sitting up, or even pushing his hat back, Nin growled from beneath the hat "My ass! Ain't nothin' 'final' 'til I say it's final. The hell is a 'Mainyu'?" The sound of his voice startled the campers momentarily, since he'd done nothing else to announce he was awake before speaking.

Tibbs recovered quickly, and, pushing his spectacles up his nose to his eyes replied "It's a organization - an army, really - headed by an entity named 'Ba'al' that..."

At that, Ninurta sat up and pushed back his hat with a scowl. "Ba'al? It's my understanding that Ba'al was banished for good over 2000 years - closer to 3000 - before my time! I never though Ba'al was a real thing... is this a campfire tale then?"

Tibbs expressed his displeasure at the interruption with a pointed scowl at Ninurta, then continued with "as I was saying, the Final Mainyu is an army poised on the edge of invasion - of other dimensions."

At that, Ninurta snorted and interjected "So it IS just a campfire tale then! Pray tell continue wi' yer yarn."

"I will, if you'll stop interrupting it" Tibbs responded. "And I assure you it's real, and no 'campfire tale'. It's real enough that the Great Council of the Perfect Nine has tasked me - us - with stopping the threat..." here Tibbs paused and lowered his voice " ... and legend has it that this threat is unstoppable."

At that Ninurta snorted, threatening to break out into a full grown guffaw. "Unstoppable you say? Ain't nothin' unstoppable. D'ye recall the old philosophical question of 'what happens when an unstoppable force encounters an immovable object'? We ARE that immovable object, and any 'unstoppable force' ain't got a ghost of a prayer!"

Tibbs resigned himself to the interruptions and gingerly said "That is a question without an answer, designed to confound. It's an impossibility."

"Oh no, it DOES have an answer. You just have to think outside the box" Nin responded.

Tibbs was pretty sure he didn't want to get drawn into this philosophical debate with a lowbrow obviously out of his depth, especially not on the eve of such a momentous undertaking, but he couldn't resist - Ninurta at times thought he knew more than he really did, and this was obviously one of those times. Tibbs intended to prove that, and shut the gunman up for once. "Well, my fine philosophical master. If there is an answer to this question designed to have no logical answer, what would that answer be?"

Ninurta didn't bat an eye, but managed to look smug all the same. "Mutual annihilation, of course! Destruction of everything involved, and the production of pure energy from it."

Tibbs sat nonplussed for a beat, then said "We would be among 'everything involved', in that case, wouldn't we?"

Ninurta shrugged. "The prospect of personal destruction ain't never stopped me afore. Point me at 'em!"

Tibbs was torn. He was certain he had selected the right crew for the job, but this didn't look like there was going to be a happy ending involved for any of them. The little Wizard - looking man wondered, and not for the first time, whether Ninurta was banking on his immortality or trying to find a way around it to his final end. He fervently hoped that the Final Mainyu's 'unstoppability' WAS indeed just legend.

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